Many viewers of performances, whether live or broadcast, and perhaps especially viewers of films and television shows enjoy sharing with each other when and what they are viewing. As individuals' lives have become busier and as family and friends have become more dispersed from a single geographic area, in modern times, opportunities for communal viewing have decreased, and more video content is being viewed independently and individually. Additionally, video content viewing is often time-shifted, for example, via the use of digital video recorders (DVRs) and consumption of video on demand (VOD) content, and thus, users may not view video content at the same time. Further, such users may have different service providers who may offer viewings at a different time on a different channel altogether.
A variety of attempts have been made by various social networks or social television aggregators to provide assorted types of “live chat” experiences during television programs or other broadcast events. Although such solutions may help to enable users in remote locations to make comments while they view a same show, the users may be restricted to simultaneous viewing of video content. As can be appreciated, simultaneous viewing of video content, especially by users who are located in different time zones, may be challenging, and “live chat” in time-shifted content may not be provided especially when the video is provided by different providers through different channels.
Although users may be less likely or less able to communally view video content due to location and timing constraints, the desire for shared viewing experiences still exists. It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.